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PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL 



FREEDMAN'S COMMISSION, 



OCCASIONAL PAPER. 



JANUAEY, 1866. 



BOSTON: 

Press of Geo. C. Rand & Avery, 3 Cornhill. 

1866. 



Gift 
t>ouicfl onkiiowu 

4 My ^5 



^^ f vottsstant-^pissicoirnl ^vtcdmau'jsi (Sammi^ssian* 



INTRODUCTION. 



At a meeting of the Board of" Missions of the Protestant- 
Episcopal Church, hehl at St. Luke's Church, Philadolpliia, on 
the e\x^ning of Oct. 5, 1865, it was resolved that so much 
of the Report of the Domestic Committee as relates to the 
freedmen of the South be referred to a committee of seven. 

The following committee was appointed : — 

The Bishops of North Carolina and Illinois, the Rev. Dr. 
Wiiarton, Rev. Dr. Quintard, Rev. Dr. Mahan, and Messrs. 
Churchill and Huntington. 

At a meeting of the Board held at St. Luke's Church on the 
evening of Oct. 13, the following resolutions on the report of 
the Committee were unanimously adopted : — 

Eesolved (1), That the Constitution of this Society be so 
amenc^d as to authorize the appointment, during the will 
of this Board, of a commission, to be called the '' Protes- 
tant-Episcopal Freedman's Commission," to whom shall be 
committed the religious and other instruction of the freed- 
men ; said commission to meet quarterly, a majority to be 
a quorum, with authority to appoint a secretary, and gen- 
eral agent, and treasurer ; and to constitute, as its general 
representative, with full power to act for it during its re- 
cess, an executive committee, composed of such of its mem- 
bers as it may prescribe, not to exceed eight ; the members 
of said executive committee to be ex officio members of the 
Board of Missions, said commission to be governed in its 
actions by the principles laid down in the eleventh article 
of the Constitution of the Board. 

Besolved (2), Until otherwise ordered, this commission shall 
consist of the following persons : Rt. Rev. Bishops Williams, 
Potter, Odeuheimer, Stevens; Rev. Drs, Dix, A. H. Vinton, 
Hawks, E. Washburne, Littlejohn, Haight, Montgomery, 
Dyer, Rev. Edward Anthon, Rev. Drs. Diller, Eccleston, 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

ITowland ; Messrs. H. Fish, Ruo;gles, F. S. Winston, John 
Welsh, John Bohlen, Georp:o D. Alorgan, Robert B. Minturn, 
George (\ Collins John II. Swift, Stewart Brown, W. H. 
Aspinwall, John Travers. 

Signed for Committee: 

Thomas Atkinson. Francis Wharton. 

H. J. Whitehouse. a. it. Churchill. 

C. T. QuiNTAUD. S. U. Huntington. 
MiLO Mahan. 

On motion, Rev. Drs. Wharton and Huntington, and the 
Rev. John A. Aspinwall, were added to the Commission. 
It was then unanimously 

Resolved, That the first resolution connected with the re- 
port be a[)proved by the Boai-d, and transmitted to the Gen- 
eral Convention lor their action thereon. 

At a meeting of the General Convention, at St. Andrew's 
Church, Philadelphia, on Wednesday, Oct. 18, the proposed 
amendment of the Constitution of the Board of Missions was 
unanimously passed by each house. 

^ At a meeting of the Board of Missions, held at St. Luke's 
Church, on the evening of the same day, the following pream- 
ble and resolutions were unanimously adopted : — - 

Whereas The General Convention has enacted the amendment 
of the Constitution of this Society in reference to freed- 
mon proposed by this Board, 

lieaolved, That the gentlemen heretofore nominated as mem- 
bers of the Freedmen's Commission be hereby appointed 
members of said commission. 

The Commission mot at the rooms of the Domestic Commit- 
tee, New York, on Friday, Nov. 10. The following mem- 
bers W(M-e i)rosent : — 

Rt. Rev. IJishop Potter, Rt. Rev. Bishop Odenheimer, and 
Rt. Rev. Bishop Stevens. 

Rev. Drs. i)ix, Dyer, Ecclcston, ITaight, Ilowland, Littlejohn, 
Montgoniery, A. II. Vinton, Washburne, AVharton ; Rev. 
Messrs. Anthon and Aspinwall; Messrs. S. Brown, Minturn, 
Morgan, Welsh, and Winston. 

Rev. John A. Aspinwall was elected Recording Secretary to 
the Commission; and Rev. Dr. Wharton, Corresponding Sec- 
rotary. Robert B. Minturn, Esq., was elected Treasurer. 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

Tho following Executive Committee was appointed : — 
Rev. Dr. Haiglit, Rev. Dr. A. II. Vinton, Rev. Dr. Little- 
john, Rev. Dr, Eccleston, IlamiUon Fis1i, E^5q., F. S. Winston, 

Esq., G. D. Morgan, Esq., and John Welsh, Esq. 
The following resolutions were adopted : — 

Resolved, That the Executive Committee be requested to open 
a correspondence with the Rt. Rev. the Bishops of North 
Carolina, Tennessee, and the South-west, and with other 
Southern Bishops, so soon as the way shall he open for such 
communications, and make of them a respectful request to 
be favored with such suggestions as they may be inclined 
to make with regard to the best methods of prosecuting 
the work for which this Commission was created. 

Resolved, That the Committee be requested to direct tlieir 
attention, as their main object, to the religious and secular 
instruction and physical relief of the fieedmen of the South ; 
it being within their power incidentally to aid by pecuniary 
grants such clergymen as are engaged in the teaching of 
colored persons. 

At a subsequent meeting of the Executive Committee, it 
was resolved, — 

1. — That the clergy be requested to take up a collection, 
in aid of the Commission, on the coming day of National 
Thanksgiving ; or, if this interfere with diocesan regulations, 
at the earliest period practicable. 

2. — That contributions of clothing be earnestly solicited 
to meet the destitution among the freedmen that now exists. 

3. — That this Commission heartily invites the formatitjn of 
auxiliary societies, diocesan or parochial, to aid in its import- 
ant work. 

4. — That the Corresponding Secretary be requested to is- 
sue an appeal, stating the nature and objects of the work in 
which the Committee is engaged. 

At a meeting of the Executive Committee, lield in New 
York, on Friday, Dec. 15, the Rev. J. Bcixton S.mitii, D.D., 
Avas elected General Agent. Hereafter, all applications from 
teachers, and all communications as to supplies, are to be di- 
rected to the Rev. J. Brinton SMrra. D.D., at the oflice of 
the Commission, No. 10, Bible House, N.Y. Goods for Freed- 
men to be forwarded to the same address. 

The Rev. Dr. "Wharton was, on the same day, elected a 
member of the Executive Committee, in place of Rev. Dr. 
Eccleston, resigned. 



ADDRESS 



BY THE 



REV. PRANCIS WHARTON, LL.D., 



DELIVTCRED IN 



DURING TUE MONTH OF DECEJIBEK, 18(55.* 



_ Br the unanimous action of the Board of Missions, sanc- 
tioned and authorized by the equally unanimous action of the 
General Convention, a commission has been instituted for 
the instruction and relief of the Ireedmen of the South. As 
this Commission now appeals to our whole Church for sympa- 
thy and support, it is here proposed to set forth some of the 
grounds by which its institution is required, and some of 
the principles by which its action will be governed. 

EDUCATION OF FREEDMEN NEEDED BY THE WHOLE NATION. 

First let us view the necessity of such action, as required 
by the condition of the freedmeu themselves. Never was so 
largo a body of men placed in a condition so critical, both as to 
themselves and as to the nation of which thoy are part. They 
comprise a population of four millions ; for a number of years 
they have been almost the sole laborers by whom our South- 
ern fields have been worked. Without them, cotton and su- 
gar, for iustance, could not have been produced ; if thoy were 
not the only laborers who could have borne the climate, they 
were certainly the only laborers on the spot who were at 
hand to till the soil. No industrial class is now ready to take 
their place; yet, without some competent industrial class, not 

♦ Tliin address, tlioufrli unoflicial, will be of use in giving information on 
the important subject of wliick it treats. 



EDUCATION OF FREEDMEN NEEDED BY WHOLE NATION. 7 

merely will the South be permanently desolated,* but the 
prosperity, the peace, the solvency of the Avhole country Avill 
be seriously shocked. To the full play of business reciprocity 
between the several distinct staple-growing sections of our 
diversitied land must we look for the liquidation of our debt, 
and the restoration of our prosperity ; and, besides this, unless 
a system of successful labor, with its products of comfort and 
wealth be inaugurated in the South, that section will be sur- 
rendered to political discontent and disorder, which will not 
merely destroy our general commercial well-be ing,-|- but will 
change the whole character of our political institutions from a 
federal republic to a military centralization. Yet, in the pres- 
ent condition of the frecdmen, these dangers are very immi- 
nent, unless prompt and wise remedial action be taken. They 
are detached from the ligatures, which, under the old system, 
kept them at work, and the new motives of inteUigeut percep- 
tion, of the consciousness of the necessity of labor, and of 
duty impelling to it, have not yet been formed. By the old 
system, Southern labor was like oars, b}' which, under the 
force of a superior will, the boat was clumsily propelled ; the 
new system is like the steam-engine, which, when once fixed 
up, will apply vastly greater power, with vastly less supervi- 
sory effort. But the difficulty is that we have taken out the 
oars, and not yet put in the engine ; we have removed from 
negro labor the impetus of compulsion, and not yet applied to 
it the impetus of intelligence and conscientious motive ; and, 
unless the last impetus be applied, we can expect nothing but 
wreck. 

PERIL OF NON-EDUCATION. 

Then, again, view the political danger to our land, should 
they remain freedmen, yet with minds and consciences thus 
untaught and unilluminated. A free and yet ignorant and 
debased race cannot exist in the vitals of the body-politic 
without the most fearful risks. Supposing, — if we dare con- 
template such a guilty catastrophe as this supposition in- 
volves, — supposing that like the Indians they are ultimately 
to perish, under the torture of a civilization which clasps but 
will not incorporate or elevate. The Indians were a nomadic 
race, comparatively few in numbers, dwelling on our out- 
skirts, instinctively wandering forth to die where their 
deaths wrought no paroxysm in the dominant society, and 
their corruption spread no infection. But the negro is not 
nomadic; he refuses to wander from his old homes; there 
have these four millions of human beings lived, and there will 

* See appendix A. f See appendix B. 



8 KEGRO CAPABLE OP EDUCATION. 

they die. If they die from demorah'zation and degradation, 
their death, — the death of this living organism permeating 
every core and fibre of our land; the very presence of this 
dying, diseased mass in eacli point and pore of our system, — 
this cannot but be degradation and debasement, if not death, 
to ourselves. No nation can be prosperous, or healthy, or 
free, that palpitates with such death-throes as these, and incor- 
porates such a polluting, d^-ing presence. 

Or, take the other alternative, and suppose that they do not 
die out; but that they continue to live, — live free, with the 
power of doing what they choose, without the motive or the 
capacity of self-support. No nation, without social revolutions 
the most stupendous, can include in its bounds a population 
which is at once free and yet has nothing to bind it up in 
social sympathy and business intercommunion with the classes 
by which the land is controlled, and which is without the ca- 
pacity of intelligent industry, where intelligent industry alone 
can secure a support. Such men, brutish through ignorance, 
and maddened through poverty, would form a constant insur- 
gent element, as untamable as fire, ready to be kindled by 
the first frantic impulse within, or the first insidious instiga- 
tion from without. They must be elevated to self-support and 
self control, and to a wise, intelligent, and loyal citizenship, 
if we would protect our country, and especially our Southern 
country, from the constant danger of revolt. The negro, if 
free, intelligent, and conscientious, will contribute to restore 
our country to a prosperity and vigor and moral dignity here- 
tofore unapproached; free, but uneducated, ho will not only 
corrupt, but shatter our whole social fabric. 

NEGRO CAPABLE OF EDUCATION. *"' 

But is the freedman capable of the cultivation here in- 
voked? This grave question let us next consideV. 

And remember, in considering it, that it is not disputed ; 
that centuries of barbarism, followed by centuries of slavery, 
have deposited over the intellectual structure of the negro a 
crust which it may take generations wholly to remove. And 
it should be remembered, also, that the immcdiat« issue is 
not their present homogencousncss of intellect with the white 
race, but simply their capacity to become intelligent, Chris- 
tian, selfsupporting, and self-directing members of that great 
industrial community, of which three-fourths of our population 
are already composed. 

Nor i« it disputed that there are certain characteristics of 
barbarism and slavery which will imprint themselves on any 
people on which they press. Those who are subject to arbi- 
trary rule, will take to lying; those who have no "right to hold 



NEGRO CAPABLE OP EDUCATION. 9 

property, will not be particular as to property's more refined 
distinctions; tliosc who cannot turn tiicir labor to their own 
account, will not trouble themselves by working more than 
they are actually compelled. Nor is it disputed that it may 
take time to cflace the characteristics thus stamped ; all that 
is claimed is, that they are the result of* a peculiar social sys- 
tem, and that, when that system is removed, they will sooner 
or later disappear. 

But wliat is here asserted is, that the negro race has in it, 
aside from these accidents, the elements which make up an 
intelligent. Christian, self-directing and self-elev;iting indus- 
trial class ; and to some of the grounds on which this assertion 
rests, let us now turn. 

HIS CAPACITY ORDAINED BY GOD. 

And first, we all admit tiiat the negro race flows from 
the same original source as our own; and that, as the several 
streams which make up human society have, under God's 
providence, diverged, so they may be made to converge, under 
the same divine will. Nor can it be denied that it was all 
mankind which was originally made in the image of God, and 
that that image is borne by the blacks as well as by ourselves. 

So, in the next place, must we hold that the temporal as 
well as the spiritual promises of revelation apply to black as 
well as to white: ''As in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
shall all be made alive." Nor is this all. "They," — so the 
whole body of the redeemed are spoken of, — "they shall not 
build, and anotjier inhabit; they shall not plant, and another 
eat ; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and 
mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands." We 
cannot exclude the negro from the range of promises which 
these represent, without excluding ourselves. 

AND PROVED BY HISTORY. 

So, also, we must admit that in the fluctuations of races there 
have been eras in which the African exhibited, while our own 
ancestors gave no trace of, those very capacities for intolh'gent, 
self-supporting industry, to which we now appeal. Thus, 
among the most stupendous monuments of skilful labor which 
the earth retains, still reposes the bust of Mcmnon, regally 
presiding as if among its own creations, yet with its ver}' 
countenance marked by those African peculiarities which we 
now associate with brutishness and incapacity. So among the 
hieroglyphics, which first expressed thought in words, and 
which taught lessons to Greece and Rome when our ancestors 
were roaming the forests of Aliddle Europe in a savage ignor- 
ance as brutish as that of the present African, — intertwined 



10 EDUCATION A PACIFIER AND RENOVATOR. 

inextricably among these hieroglyphics, as if incapable of dis- 
sociation from them, is the profile of this same African face. 
And while subsequent centuries have shown that these facul- 
ties have become largely dormant, it is very clear that they 
have not become extinct. The New Testament brings to our 
notice, as if to classify this race among both the subjects and 
actors of early Christian civilization, an Ethiopian who was 
possessed not merely of cultivation, but of rank requiring 
considerable executive gifts; and from time to time men of 
negro blood have been eminent as bishops, as captains, and as 
masters both of fiction and of the exact sciences. Even now 
we have a Liberian republic, wdiich has been governed for the 
last twenty years with a sagacity and success which at least 
the South American governments cannot surpass; and we 
have at this moment a negro bishop of Anglican consecra- 
tion, presiding with great good sense and energy over an 
African diocese ; and a negro clergyman, of singular elo- 
quence and tact, addressing the congregations of our own 
land. — If we see iron ore yellowing the side of a distant hill ; 
if by that hill-side we see majestic structures which this very 
iron served to knit ; if Ave find the same vein running, under- 
ground though it may be, to the spot where we stand, we 
cannot doubt that now, with proper care, this same ore 
can be worked up to the same purposes for which it was for- 
merly so eifectively employed. And even though now the 
outcroppings of negro power be but occasional, yet here is the 
race, and there are its past achievements, and there, at the 
beginning, was its common origin with ourselves; and here is 
the very hand of Providence, pointing us to the very work of 
restoration, for which we thus have both materials and pat- 
tern.- 

EDUCATION A PACIFIER AND RENOVATOR. '^ 

Nor can we examine the condition of the freedman now, 
without seeing in him a peculiar readiness for that very kind 
of restoration which would make him our fit co-worker in the 
building up both of State and Church. In the modulations of 
races, as of climates, Providence may well be supposed to es- 
tablish such a diversity in unity as may bring out a more com- 
plete and healthy interchange and development of labor than 
identity of occupation and temperament would produce ; and 
this diversity we perceive here. In our own race, we notice 
force of character, enterprise, stubbornness, high inventive- 
ness, great restlessness in the seeking out and occupation of 
new fields, as well as a pliysical inability to pursue labor under 
a tropical sky. In the African, we see docility, remarkable 

* Seo Appendix C. 



EDUCATION MUST BE PRACTICAL AND SECULAR. 11 

skill in imitation and reproduction from a given tj'po, an over- 
weening attachment to its old sites, a perfect content in almost 
monotonous perseverance in application to a particular round 
of pursuits, and a capacity to labor in climates which white 
industry cannot endure. And, in the common base from which 
these diverging types spring, this same feature of variety rising 
from unity a[)pears. We cannot look at the schools where the 
children of both races are respectively taught, without seeing 
that the negro child, so far as concerns the reception of the 
primary branches of education, is not behind those of our own 
color, whoso homo advantages have been as slight. The ques- 
tion of the negro's immediate capacity for high speculative 
thought does not here arise, and may well be deferred to 
future experience ; but, as far as concerns his capacity for 
what is necessary for his own temporal and spiritual welfare, 
and the temporal and spiritual welfare of our country, the 
record is clear. Capacity of this kind he has from God in 
common with ourselves ; capacity of this kind has been 
abundantly shown in the past ; the susceptibility for the cul- 
tivation of this capacity he shows now. If there be a diver- 
sity, as contrasted with ourselves, in the way in which this ca- 
pacity develops itself, such diversity only tells in favor of 
future prosperity and peace. It diminishes collision ; it ex- 
hibits each race as in part the complement of the other ; it 
gives to each race that in the aid of the other which it itself 
needs ; it tends the better to energize and refine and elevate 
them while at the same time strengthening and steadying us ; 
it is the best restorer of social sympathy and peace.* 

THE KIND OF EDUCATION NEEDED. 

What, then, is the education we should seek to impart ? is the 
next question to which we are to address ourselves. And I 
need not say that this education must be twofold : it must be 
secular, so as to stimulate the sclfsupporting and self-elevating 
powers ; and it must be religious, so as to give resoluteness 
and enlightenment to conscience, and to extend by the con- 
version of souls the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. No 
education, in the position in which the frcedman now finds 
himself, would be adequate without embracing the first of 
these heads. 

MUST BE PRACTICAL AND SECULAR. 

We are apt to smile at political economy; but that form 
of political economy which is instinctive in the Anglo-Amer- 
ican, — that sort of second nature which teaches us as a 

* See Appendix D. 



12 AND ALSO POSITIVELY CHRISTLUJ. 

race tliat labor Avill find a market, and a market will find 
labor ; wliich enables us to seize for ourselves and impart to 
others that taste for the comforts of civilization wliich makes 
those couilbrts essential to universal social life, and thus ex- 
tends the domains of industry, and refines its ingcnuit}'- and in- 
tensifies its stimulus, — the home political economy which 
prom[)ts us all to work each day the longer and the more skil- 
fully, so that a higher degree of education, and an ampler scale 
of comfort may be ours, — in this Ignd of political economy 
must the negro be taught. IIo must thus learn the need ol" la- 
bor to himself, and he must learn the misery which idleness 
breeds, and he must learn the modes by which labor can be 
most skilful and most effective, not merel}" in the field or 
workshoji, but in the extension of the comforts of his own 
home. And what we would do with our children, did we 
wish to malvC labor attractive to them, we must do to this, the 
nation's child, — this child whose welfare is as essential to 
us as to himself We must create refined tastes and refined 
intellectual cravings, so that the fruits of knowledge, as well 
as the burdens and grief of knowledge, may be his ; so that the 
new cares of labor and self support tlius opened may be bright- 
ened by recreation and ennobled by intellectual growth. 

AND MUST ALSO BE POSITIVELY CHRISTIAN. 

And then, as to the second form which the education of the 
freednian should assume, as an indispensable need, must the 
positive truths of the gospel be imparted, and this through 
conservalive and stable agencies. How, without illuminating 
the conscience, and, in the thunders of the revealed word, ex- 
hibiting the retributions of eternity, — how, except by uniting 
to those thunders the pleadings of Him who died for us on the 
tree, — how else can you plant among this peojilc, now as it 
were without law, either within or above themselves, the prin- 
ciples of morality without which they cannot ever exist? The 
gospel, besides the day-school, is economically needed to stim- 
ulate to industry ; to teach that the idler is condemned by 
God ; but the gospel is needed for something more. Remem- 
ber, for instance, how essential is the sanctity of marriage to 
a people's health and integrity and growth ; and remember 
how imperfectly regarded was this sanctity by this people in 
days past. Scrutinize the speculative philosophy fioatcd down 
to them by the present humanitarian propagandism of our 
own North. Analyze this philosophy ; see whether it is not im- 
bued not merely with scepticism as to all divine sanctions, 
but with supercilious contem[)t of the most precious of the 
institutions by which we hedge in domestic life. Misty as 



PERIL OF SCEPTICAL TEACUING. 13 

this pliilosopliy. is, yet from it drops of poison liquefy and 
exude, wliicli may corrode and sever the few ligatures of iioinc 
fidelity by which this unhappy people are ytiU restrained. 
Add to this the influence of the presence of alternate armies, 
— that influence which is one of the most fearlul elements of 
war, — and you can conceive that it needs the full teaching 
of the revelation of God, — a revelation in the tendeiness of 
Calvary and the terrors of Sinai, to establish the iinperativc- 
uess of that marriage sanctity to which, as a single branch of 
Christian ethics, I now for illustration refer. Yet. it iiomc, 
if marriage, if the nurture and tutelage of cliildi'en, if the 
decorousness and forethought which theye involve, — if those 
principles be not implanted with the most awlul of sanctions 
in the negro race, what results can we expect but vagrancy, 
and disease, and pollution, and ruin, and death?* 

And then, rising from the illustration to the principle, wo 
ascend to contemplate the full motive power to right action 
which the gospel of Christ alone can supply. By neither com- 
pulsion nor prudence can this motive power be produced. 
Compulsion or prudence may plant a transient and superficial 
industry on our land, like those canvas villages and trees 
which were unfurled on the roads over which the Russian 
empress travelled, and which, when the pageant ])assed on, 
were removed. But institutions which are real, which have 
an abiding I)ase, which will remain steadfast while the awful 
pomp of eternity marches on, — these must be founded on the 
resolutions of a spiritualized heart, resting on no temporary 
pressure or transient policy, but on a sincere reverence to an 
immutable God. Constraint or prudence may coerce, but can- 
not regenerate ; may push to the temporary effort, but cannot 
lead to the remote end ; may insert in u& a transient mechanism, 
but cannot inspire a self-determining soul. But the gospel 
gives purpose and strength, and in the atonement of the Sa- 
viour, and in the sureness of his grace, supplies the stimulus 
and the power of vigorous and holy. life. It nerves the soul, bo 
its human accidents what they may, with a man's vigor, and 
graces it with a saint's pardon, and wings it with a seraph's 
strength, and speeds it to God's own home. It is a gospel 
which we dare not hold back from this unhappy people, if we 
value our country's safely, and if we would ourselves hope to 
stand, without one of the most awful judgments ever pro- 
nounced upon a church, before the Saviour's bar. Because 
thy brother was dying, and thou wouldst not relieve ; there- 
fore is death to come upon thee. There may be a vicarious 

• See Appendix E. 



14 THIS THE WISEST FORM OP AGENCY. 

spiritual death of the wrong-doer in the place of those whose 
misery he would not relieve ; there may be prosperity with 
him here, while in the wronged there may be wretchedness ; 
but his hereafter may be the desolation they have now. God 
grant that this vicarious suffering may not l3e ours. Yet how 
dare we offer this prayer, if we withhold the bread of mercy 
and the bread of life ? 

BY WHAT AGENCY ? 

What, then, is the agency by which our Church is now in- 
voked to undertake this great work? And it is with no little 
satisfaction that I recur to the fact that this agency is not 
merely churchly, and in full accordance with the analogies of 
an ecclesiastical structure, but that it is in conformity with 
the principles invoked by the national Government, through 
the appeals of that wise Christian soldier who now heads the 
Freedmau's Bureau.* 



NOT BY ONE OP SOCIAL DISINTEGRATION. 

No system of instruction, — so he holds, and so hold we, — can 
be successful, which is based on social distrust or antagonisms 
between the two races who now occupy the South. Bitter 
conflicts there may be, and surgings upwards of brute force, 
and the possible final calamity of a war of races sympathet- 
ically permeating the whole land, ending in the destruction of 
the weaker ; but not that equal, quiet, peaceful growth of the 
industrial and intellectual and spiritual faculties, which Chris- 
tianity as well as true national policy involves. No system 
of instruction can be so successful as that which unites the 
influence of the old religious instructors of the negro with 
that of those who now proceed thither from our own Northern 
shores. Nor can I refer to these, the negro's religious in- 
structors of the past, witliout saying tliat their fidelity then, 
is the highest pledge of their fidelity now. Among them were 
some of the most devoted missionaries the Church ever knew ; 
to them now the heart of the freedman almost exclusively ap- 
peals wlion seeking consolation in sorrow, or for rites to bless 
the new-born child, or bury his dead. And this is the influ- 
ence that seeks to welcome us in our work.f 

• See Appendix P. f See Appendix G. 



MISERY AND RUIN APPEALING FOR OUR AID. 15 



BUT BY ONE UNITING RELIGIOUS SANCTIONS OF NORTH AND 

SOUTH. 

By US, in the North, there is no individuality to be lost. 
Our teachers go forth as teachers from the North, speaking 
witli the authority of the North, breathing those principles 
wliich make hibor honorable, and which associate with it the 
right of progressive self-elevation. And as such tliose of our 
own communion in the South receive us, glad, so they tell us, to 
see thus summoned the several energies needed for the regen- 
eration of the unhappy race of which they, with us, are the 
trustees, and with whose welfare their own welfare is so 
closely combined. And so it will be that, while retaining our 
own distinctiveness as to the tone and mode of secular teach- 
ing, we will not proceed to the field as agents of social antago- 
nism, and of those race animosities which will turn schools 
into sepulchres, but as men appointed to heal and cement, 
as well as to instruct. Our mission is thus to teach in the only 
way in which teaching can be either efficient or salutary; it 
is, by the very sanction and organism of our teaching, to use, 
for the elevation of the freedmen, the reliu'ious influence of 
the whole land ; it is, therefore, while elevating the freed- 
man, to establish, not distrust and hostility, but confidence and 
harmony between them and those of our own race with whom 
they are appointed to dwell. 

MISERY AND RUIN APPEALING FOR OUR AID. 

And so it is that our Church as a whole, as well as our na- 
tion as a whole, sanction us as we undertake this momentous 
work. We have with us addresses from the clergy of the 
South breathing the very spirit, and using not a few of the 
points, on which this argument rests ; but voices come to us 
still more solemn and vehement. In the trail of armies, it 
is not merely the stately Southern temple that has been swept 
down ; the little cabin in which the negro worshipped was 
regarded with even less reverence; and, in the common ruin, 
few sanctuaries now remain where this people can assemble 
to worship the Triune God. No interdict of papal tyranny 
has been more awful than the spiritual interdict uttered by 
this war. Bell and book, as it were, forbidden by the trum- 
pet's peal and the cannon's roar ; the rites of marriage unsol- 
emnized ; the altar proflxned ; the pulpit silenced ; the child 
unbaptized ; and unburied the dead. Nor, in the spread of 
material ruin, is it the once powerful and rich who have suf- 



16 MISERY AND RUIN APPEALING FOR OUR AID. 

fercfl alone. It is on the slaves that the common ruin has fallen 
in the most devastating and sharpest power.* They have been 
the spoil of spoils; on them, the waifs of humanity, cast off from 
the protective care of all, has the full storm been spent. In a 
single case reported to us, among the children of a plantation, 
who before this dispersion numbered over hfty, it has now been 
ascertained that there is not one who has not since died from 
disease or neglect. By an official report of the Freedinan's 
Bureau, it is estimated, that, unless adequate relief be supplied, 
thirty thousand will perish in Georgia, forty thousand in Ala- 
bama, in the winter that now sets in. Huddled together in 
camps, or in the unhealthiest recesses of cities ; fevered and 
prostrated by the delusive expectation of a political millennium 
in whose solaces their broken hearts may find peace, and their 
weary limbs rest; exercising no care over themselves or their 
young, — they are corrupting, they are perishing, they have 
perished in hundreds of thousands from utter misery and 
want ; the}'' will so perish still. These, — dying Christiess, we 
standing by with closed hands, — we must meet before the 
throne ; and the living, in their wretchedness, plead and 
wrestle .with us now. Prom these ruined sanctuaries, from 
these haunts where the race is dying before our eyes, the 
awful ibrm of Ilim with the eyes of llarae arises to ask us 
who will go forth on this work of mercy ? who will give them 
prayers and aid ? Millions went forth at the call of war; and 
countless was the treasure by which they were supplied. Who 
will now be ready, by the gospel of peace, to save this per- 
ishing people? who to save ourselves? 

♦ See appendix II. 



APPENDIX. 



Appendix A. 

NECESSITY OF INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY TO THE SOUTH. 

Gov. Paesons, at the Cooper Institute, New York, Nov. 13, 18C5. 

It is difficult with language to portray tlie devastation which war, especially civil war, 
produces, so as to furnisli an adequate idea of its efl'ccts. To realize them you must witness 
them ; to comprehend tliem fully, you must live upon tiie theatre, and witness the advance 
and the retreat of vast armies, listen to tlie roar of battle, and see those who are left upon 
the field after the retreat; you must see fields laid waste, farm-houses, cotton-presses, and 
gins in ruins; you must see towns and cities in flames, to form any tiling like an adequate 
idea of what war in reality is. You, whose fortune it lias been to see only tlie regiment 
witli colors streaming, tlie recipients of all tlie kindness and watchful care tliat friends 
could bestow, as they left for the scene of battle, can form no conception of the appearance 
of tliat regiment after the battle is over, unless, indeed, it has been your fortune to be on 
the scene of action, or so near it that vour house has been crowded witli tliose wlio have 
become victims of the strife. It will be in your recollection, ladies and gentlemen, that 
during tlie last of iVIarch, and in April, tlie Ucbellion suddenly collapsed. At that time 
public attention in the North was doubtless turned mainly to llie operations around Rich- 
mond, and to those wliich attended the movements of tlie vast armies of Gen. tjlierman. 
But it also happened that Gen. Wilson, with a large force of cavalry, some seventeen 
thousand, I believe, in number, commenced a movement from the Tennessee River, and a 
point in tlie north-west of tlie State of Alabama, diagonally across tlie 6t-.vte. He pene- 
trated to the centre, and tlien radiated from Selnia in every direction throug^li one of the 
most productive regions of the feouth. The defences of tliat little city of about ten thousand 
inhabitants were carried by assault on one of the first Sunday eveninfj:s iu last April, sun 
about an liour liigh It was tliought necessary by the com- 
manding general to reduce and subdue the spirit of Rebellion. For one week the forces 
under Gen. \Vilson occupied that little town, and night after night, and day after day, one 
public building after another, first the arsenal, then the foundry, each of wliich covered 
about eight or nine acres of ground, and was conducted upon a scale commensurate with 
the demand that military supplies for war created; railroad depots, machine shops con- 
nected with them, every thing of that description which liad been in any degree subser- 
vient to the cause of the Rebellion, was laid in ashes. Out of some sixty-odd brick stores 
in the city, forty-nine, I think, were consumed. On the line of march, you were scarcely 
out of sight of some indication of its terribleconsequences. Indeed, after three weeks had 
elaiised, it was with dilliculty you could travel the road from Plantersville to that city, so 
ofl'cnsive was the atmosphere in consequence of decaying horses and mules that lay along 
the road-side. Every description of ruin except the interred df'ad of the human family met 
the eye. 1 witnessed it myself. The fact is that no description can equal the reality. 
When the Federal forces left that little town, which is built on a blulf on the Alabama 
River, they crossed on a pontoon bridge, and commenced in the night to cross, and their 
way was lighted by burniu;; warehouses standing on the shore. All this is a part of war, 
a part of tliat severe discipline which nations e.Kperience, and must e.vpect to share as the 
fortunes of war vary, when they lay aside reason and appeal to brute force to settle what 
reason should settle, among Christian people certainly, and especially those who are born 
beneath the same flag. [Applause.] At the time of'these great occurrences to which I 
at first alluded, around Riclimond, and in connection with Gen. Sherman's army, this de- 
vastatiou was in progress in the State of Alabama. Up to that time, such had been the 
fortune of war, that our State had exi)ericnced very little of its baleful ell'ects, except the 
occupancy of about four counties north of the Tennessee Kivcr, and a small skirt of the 
shore on the (iulf of Mexico. In the South, we knew little of the presence of the army, 
except as prisoners were brought to us to be provided for, and our own sons and brothers 
were marshalled and carried ott" to the field. Out of a voting population of ninety thou- 
sand, Alabama furnished a hundred and twenty-two thousand men for service in the Con- 
federate army. Thirty-five thousand of these died on the field of battle, from wounds or 
from disease, and a large proportion of those who returned came back broken in health 
and constitution, and disabled by wounds from which they had jiartially recovered, but 
which renilered them unfit for active service. The white population of tli:it State was 
Sl'SjOUO, according to the census of ISIiO. At the time Gen. Wilson invaded it, the State 
was supplying with salt and meiil 139,04^ women and children, and otherwise helpless per- 

17 



18 APPENDIX. 

sons of the white race. Of the black race, tJiere were 440,000, and they, being the property 
of those who owned them, were supplied with food mid every tiling necessary for their 
comfortable subsistence physically by their owners. Hence, there never was any necessity 
in all the States for ii public assistance of the blacks. IJut this eleemosynary assistance to 
the white race was absolutely necessary. The State had appropriated, at the previous ses- 
Bion of the Legislature, seven millions of dollars for the purpose of procuring meal and 
salt for their relief. Meat was out of the question. Kven those comparatively wealthy pos- 
sessed but little of it, and that little was generally contributed, for the most part, to the 
array. That was the condition of things in Alabama at the time the Confederacy collapsed. 
Now, at that time, the corn crop of the State was just ready to be ploughed and hoed the 
first time. J5ut the black people, being informed of the presence of the Federal forces, 
thought the oil-repeated tale of freedom was actually to be verified at last, and concluded 
they would test the matter, knowintr no way of testing it e.xcept by quitting work, and 
seeing whether their masters dared order them back a^'ain to the plough-handle and the 
hoe. That was their onlv mode — simple, direct, efficacious— of testing the great proposi- 
tion, " Am I free or not ? " [ Applause.] The effect on the crop was, of course, most dis- 
astrous; but it tended to satisfy those who made the experiment that there was at least 
some degree of truth in the idea that they were free. The consequence was, that the crop, 
just at the turning point, vanished for want of cultivation ; besides, a drouth set in of un- 
paralleled severity, and continued all through the crop season; and the result is, that the 
State, thus depleted of its working force lor securing means of subsistence in the com- 
mencement of the season to a degree never before known, is now left with about half a 
crop of corn and small grain. Cotton has not been planted to any extent, because, as a 
matter of course, material for bread must be raised before cotton. This is the actual con- 
dition of all'airs, as given me by the delegates at the recent State Convention which as- 
sembled in Jlontgoniery in September last. Men of intelligence, candor, fairness in all re- 
spects, and whose judgment can be relied on, assured me that it is undoubtedly true, that 
in that State there is not more than one-lifth of a crop of grain for breadstuffs raised. 
Now, if the same ratio of indigence exists among the black population that e-xists among 
the white, it is manifest that there are seven Iiundred and fifty thousand people in that 
State who may sutler for food before the month of IMarch comes round. Our resources 
were completely exhausted, or nearly so, at the commencement of the last Spring. 

Remarks of Maj.-Gen. Meade. 

Gen. Mende said, — 

Ladies and Gentlemen, — It is hardly possible for me to express in suitable languaf^e the 
gratitude I feel from your reception of me this evening. It would be vanity in me to say 
that I thought my name was not well known here; but I really did not expect this 
flattering reception, and am deeply grateful for it. It is only riglit that I should explain 
why 1 am here before you to-night. I am no speaker, and it seems to me to be audacity 
only equal to that required to tight the great battle of Gettysburg to come before you after 
listening to the How of eloquence which you have just heard; but I was told in Philadel- 
phia, that, if I came here to-night, I might do some good. I therefore said 1 would 
come and tell you briefly how heartily I endorse the plan of the Commission, and wish it 
success. As commander of a very large; army, it has fallen to my lot to witness the ruin 
which has fallen on a large portion of the country. I can tell you that you cannot con- 
ceive the distress which exists in the Southern States. It is hardly necessary to dilate on 
this point. Since the Itcbellion broke out the men have been engaged in war, the women in 
providing for their wants. They have had no means of making money. Their currency is 
now destroyed; and, when you consider these things, you must see how great is their dis- 
tress. The question is, ought we to relieve i; '? 1 will not reason on the morality of the 
question, but 1 will tell you what we soldiers do. After fighting a battle, when the dead 
and wounded lay thick around us, we did not ask any ijuestions, but we took tender care of 
such as needed It. That should be your morality. The Southern people have now cea.sed 
to be enemies, and are disposed to be friends. It is your duty, as t.'liristians and citizens, 
and for your material interests, to believe tliern. This Comfnission is worthy of support, 
for it will relieve their necessities, and assuage the distress whicli we, in the course of this 
war, have been compelled to inflict on them. The olhcers of this association are among 
the first men in the country, and will make the very best use of all the funds that may be 
intrusted to their care. Thanking you for your very kind reception of me this evening, I 
bid you adieu 



Appendix B. 

« 

NECESSITY OF SOUTHEUN INDUSTRY TO NATIONAL PROSPERITY AND 

PEACE. 

GOV. PARSONS, OF ALABAMA, AT THE COOPEU INSTITCTK, NKW Y(»KK, NOV. 13, 1865. 

Let me say, likewise, ladies and gentlemen, and especially to tliose of you in this vast 
city who pursue commercial avocations, scarcely one ol' wliom is not, in some way, directly 
or indirectly, connected with it and alVected by it, that nothing is more important to the 
interests of the United States of America now than to restore business pursuits in all their 
old relations to each other. A good cotton croj) next year will do more to sustain the cur- 
rency of the Federal (iovernment ; to help Mr. McCulloch out of his troubles, if he h.m 
any, and perhaps he has ; to maintain the supremacy of American manufactures and 
commerce on sea and land in the future as they were aforetime; it will do morr to 
thwart the schemes and mischievous clamors of those who whisper to the South, " Free 
trade and free floods, and down with the Yankee tariff: " than any thinijelse you can devise. 
[Applause.] It will put a checkmate upon the idea of introducing Egyptian cotton in place 
of American in the market. I um informed by a distinguished citizen of this State, who is 
recentlv from Alexandria, that, when he left that port, there were fifty-one vessels, steam 
ers, laden with cotton from the Valley of the Nile, which commanded the same price in 
Liverpool as cotton from the South. Whoever is interested in that trade desires to have 
a high export duty placed upon American cotton, because such a duty would be equivalent 
to a bounty on Egvptian cotton. The same gentleman I refer to — Mr. Field, of the Atlan- 
tic Telegraph — informed me that English capital by the thousands and tens of thousands 
is being invested in the construction of railroads in India; so that tlie cotton cultivated and 
produced in the interior can be taken cheaply and rapidly to the coast, and thus brouglit to 
market, — an inferior article to the Egyptian, but which goes in to make up the sum neces- 
sary. These things, it seems to me, are worth considering. Now, if the cotton-fields of 
the'South, left desolate by the war, without labor, witliout capital to sustain a laboring 
force, and to procure that which is necessary to carry on the business of raising a new crop, — 
if these fields are permitted to go uncultivated another year does it not materially weaken 
a very great interest in the country .' I refer to this merely for the purpose of showing how 
the doctrine of compensation comes in. He who gives forth from his^ abundance to those 
who appear to have nothing to give comes back laden with returns which he little e.'cpected 
to receive. So it will be with us. It is in this that the Union will be restored in the heart 
more etiectually than any bayonet can bind it together. [Loud applause 1 It is not by 
the bayonet, that the Union is to be permanently maintained : it is by good ofBces rather. 
Who live upon the extreme South have an interest in common with those who live upoa 
the extreme North ; and I look forward, by the blessing of God, to the time when we who 
have been lately at bayonet-points and sword-points shall greet each other; the people of 
the North coming to the South, bringing their active capital there, and uniting it with 
those who have land and experience necessary to cultivate cotton and other crops, and 
spending their winters with their families in the South ; to the time, too, when new indus- 
try shall have given us new means and resources, enabling us to go to the North and spend 
our summers upon your lake-shores and your cool rivers and mountains. That will be the 
sort of union tliat will secure harmony and peace. 



Appendix C. 

CAPACITY FOR INTELLIGENT LABOR. 

The free colored people of Louisiana, numbering, according to the censuB of 18f)0, 
eighteen thousand si.K hundred and forty-seven, paid taxes, in the same year, on an assess- 
ment of thirteen millions. This gives an average for e.tch person of about seven hundred 
dollars of property. But those who are best informed on the subject estimate the actual 
free colored population in 18G0, at twenty-five thousand. Adopting this estimate, we have 
an average tor each person of five hundred and twenty dollars. Now the average wealth 
of each person throughout the loyal free States is put at only /our hundred and tif/htii-four 
dollars (National Almanac for 1S(>:?, pp. 147, 309). The average in Gre.it Britain and Ire- 
land is seven hundred and seven dollars (National Almanac, p. 140). These figures speak 
emphatically of the colored man's capacity to acquire property, even in spite of serious civU 
disabilities. 

19 



20 



APPENDIX, 



" Near Norfolk, near Richmond, and opposite Wasliington, abandoned houses as w ell as 
lauds arc rented b> coloied people themselves, or by the employers of such. All these 
lueuns hiive been taken tugive tht freedmeu the practical fruits of freeduin. 8onie may 
ask. Do they give these results ? In answer, I would say, tliat, wlierever a fair opitorluuity 
for their trial lias beeu given, the success has been even grealer than we couhl have antici- 
pated. At Davis lieiid. on the Mississippi, ihu colored people have already laid up more 
than a hundied thousand dollars. It is tlie aim of the Bureau to encouraj,'e the dillerent 
benevolent institutions. Industrial schools have been started with the best results. I saw 
au e.xcelleut one at Norfolk. A Quaker lady taught girls to sew and make dilierent gar- 
ments. Aud wherever tUeee schools have beeu tried they have paid their way." — Cien. 
Howard, August, lbti5. 

Unitkd-St.vtks Disruii.T Court, ( 

ALK.XANDltIA, VA., Juli/ lU', l6(i6. ) 

^ir, — It affords me groat pleasure to bear testimony to the good conduct of our colored 
fellow-citizens for the last two years, lu this city, we have liMd from eight to ten thousand 
ooutrabands, or refugees from \ ir-inia slavery: about two thousand of tlioiii have enlisted 
into tlie army ol tlie Union; and nearly as many more have been employed in tlie Conimis- 
sary and (jiiarlerniiisters' service, and in the hospitals of the city. Tlieir sobriety, industry, 
and economy ha\e far exceeded my expectatious, although 1 have beeu supposed to be pre- 
judiced ill lavor of the race. 

They have, within three years, built over a thousand dwelling-houses and provided quite 
comfortable furniture lor lliem, at au aviTage cost of three Imiuired dollars each. They liave 
also invested overhlty tljousaud dollars in ground rents and purchase of lots. 'I'hey have 
built three cliurches, one of wood and two of brick, together witli two comfortable woodeu 
school-houses. 

Within the last year I have invested for a largo number of individuals in Government 
Beveu-thirty bonds, amounting, in the aggregate, to nearly eight thousand dollars. 

They have now twenty teachers employed in the education of their children, and I think 
are, in i)roportioii to their numbers, giving more earnest aud general atteutiou to education 
tbtu the white people of this city. 

The colored population ot the city is now nearly equal to the white; but I am sure I have 
seen more than tifty drunken men among our white people to one among the colored 
within the last two years. 

Your friend, 

John C. Undeuwood. 

" It must be remembered that very diverse original races are represented among the 
slaves. In Southern Alabama and iilississippi will bo found, we might say, tribes with 
whom the traditions of Alrica are fresh, individuals whose memories run back to days of 
freedom there. In the small plantations of Tennessee, on the other hand, will be found 
men who have associated more freely with whites, — men used to act mori' on their indi- 
vidual responsibility, — many of whom would prove a fair match for any Scot or any 
Yankee. iS'o general inlerences, thcrefoie, are to be received with very great conlideucc; 
but it may be asserted, certainly, that the younger scholars, at the tirst, attack the prob- 
lems of learning with a sort of zeal which brings them fully up to the white children of 
their age." — '' JSi'ortU-Ameriuiti Jiemetv," October, 1605. 



AppendLs: D. 

LABOR AS A RESTORER OF SOCIAL UNITY. 

" Let mc tell you my method of solving this i>roblem, — how to rid ourselves of this 
prejudice. It is, get more the spirit of Christ. Tliat will substitute love for hate in our 
prejudices. But you will say, ' fliis is not practical: the love of Christ is not so wide- 
spread as to render this available.' Well, then, interest%vill do it. We cannot dispense 
with tlieir labor. Our intercourse which we must hold with tlieiii as our employees will serve 
to dissijtate our ])ri judices. This is my opiuion, and I can b;ick it up with facts. Hhuylund 
has become a frie .^tate by her own act. In the soullierii jiart of Maryland, the slave- 
owneis were devoted to the institution. It was of ' divine odgiii.' Slavery was 'the 
normal condition of the black race.' They hung to it as long OT they could ; but fortu- 
nately in the iiortlu'ru part <d the Slate were brave men who fought against it; and they 
liiiidly triiiiii|)lied. Immediately the lornur owners of slaves were determined to drive olf 
their hands Iroiii their old homes, fliey could live with them as slaves, but not as free 
men. liow is it now? I'hey have agents, whom tliey send to liichmond and elsewhere, 
to collect Ireedmen to labor for them. They must have their help, and they are engaging 
as many as they can get. 'I'hey are willing to pay from thirteen to lifteen dollars 
for ordiiiiiry hands : they want the women lor house labor; aud the prospect is, that there 
will hoiiii be more negroes in that seclion than there wen: formerly of slaves and free people 
of color, fhey will have no trouble in living with the whiles, nor the whites with them. 
Thus it will be everywhere." — Cien. IIuwako, August, Ibiij. 



Appendix E. 

INSTRUCTION TO BE NOT SPECULATIVE AND THEORETICAL, BUT PRACTI- 
CAL AND CHRISTIAN. 

EXTRACT FROM PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S ADDRKS3 TO THE COLORED TROOPS AT WASH- 
INGTON, OCT. 10, 18C5. 

" Hence let me impress upon j^ou the importance of controlling your passions, develop- 
ing your intellect, unci of applym'jf your i)liysiciil powers to the inilustri;il interests of the 
country; ;uul that is tlie true i)roci"ss by wiiich this ([iiestion vixn be settled. Bi- patient, 
persevering, and forbearing; and you will help to solve the probjcin. Make for yoiirselveo 
n reputation in this cause, as yon have \von for yourselves a rei)iitatiou in the cause in 
which you have been engaged. In speaking to tlie members of this regiment, I want tliem 
to uiulerstaud that, so far as I am concerned, 1 do not assnini' or pretend that I am stronger 
thin the laws, of course, of Nature, or that I am wiser than I'rovidence itself. It is our 
claiy to try and discover what those great laws lue which are at the fiiiindatlcm of all things, 
and, having discovered what they are, conform our a-lion and our conduct to them and to 
the will of tiod who rulelh all things. Me holds the destinies of nations in the palm nf liiH 
hand, anil he will solve the cpiestion, and rescue these ])eople from the dlllicultles that ha\e 
so long surroundcMl them. Then let us be patient, industrious, and jiersevering. Let us de- 
velop any intellectnal au<l moral worth. I trust what I have said maybe understood and 
appreciated. Uo to your homes, and lead peaceful, i)r(.)sperous, and happy lives, in peace 
with nil men. Give utterance to no word that would cause dissensions ; but do that which 
will be creditable to yourselves and to your country." 

GEN. HOWARD'S ADDRESS TO THE FREEDMEN OF LYNCHBURG, SEPTEMBER, 18f^. 

He impressed upon them that work was the duty and destiny of all men ; that he himself 
had worked hard all his life from his boyhooil up ; that he hail still to work hard ; and that 
lie was happy in work; and that the attempt on their jiart to 4ead any other life, would 
^urely bring them into trouble, perhaps starvation. He advised them all to make contracts 
with their former masters or others, and, when they had nuide them, to ki ep them, observe 
them to the letter; be faithful, industrious, obedient, and thus to live ilovvn the predictions 
of many that they were unlit for freedom. The (jeneral cautioned them against erroneous 
and exaggerated ideas of what freedom was ; that it hrou;4'ht with it to them respon-ibiti- 
ties and cares that they ha/1 never known before : that they would have to work hard and 
constantly to provide for themselves and families ; but that they could get along v ery well if 
they would be energetic, honest, and provident. lie urged upon them, with great eninest- 
ness, to do right ; try in all cases to find out what is right, to study and labor and i>ray 
to ascertain it, and then to do it. He warned them against lives of immoiality, idleness, 
and dishonesty, as ceitain to bring them to ruin ; .ind to endeavor to live in aceordance 
with the Cliri.itian teachings of which they had just heard. The duty of religion was very 
warinly impressed upon them ; and they were told, that, if they considered their lot a hard 
one in this life, they must so live as finally to attain to that higher and better life, where ihe 
sorrows incident to this will not be known, lie alludel to the fallacious idea which some 
entertained, that the lands of the South would be iiarcelleil among them by the ( io\ ern- 
nient at Christmas. This idea, he told them, was utterly without loundation, and to ili-<- 
caril it from their minds. The (iovernment had no lands to give; it had no right to take 
them from their owners, and it would not be best if it had the riglit ; and that, if lands 
were given them now, with their want of experience' in managing for themselves, and lack 
of means, they would not find it to their advantage, and would, most probably, soon be 
cheated out of tnem by sharpers. The best thing now was to work for others faithfully, 
learn experience, be iiulustriinis and economical, and try to save enough from their wages 
to buy tr.emselves homes alter a vliile. He urged them to educate tlieii' children, and 
bring them up to correct and useful lives. 'I'lie (ienenil alluded to the iiernicious advice 
which had been given them by mischievous persons, such as, " If a white man i)uslies yon 
off the sidewalk, push I im olf too: if lie strikes you, strike him back again," &c. " This," 
s.aid the General, " is all wrong." They must remember not to violate the tenchings of the 
blessed Saviour of whom they hat been hearing, who, when he was reviled, reviled not 
again ; when he was smitten on one cheek, turned the other. That meek and gentle example 
ot the great Master was worthy of their constant imitation. Listen not to Ihe counsels 
of bad men: they would only do them harm. Me assured them that the Government 
would protect them, and that their rights would nil lie respected. 

Gen. Howard proceeded in this strain to address his attentive audience nt considerable 
length : we give only an imperfect sketch of his remarks from memory. They were ad- 
mirably conceived, and judiciously adapted to the circumstances and necessities of the 
case, and we doubt not will result in mucti good in disabusing the minds of the negroes of 
error, and giving them correct views of their real situation and duties. 

21 



Appendix P. 

POSITION OF THE FUEEDMEN'S BUREAU. 



Circular No. 2. 



Wab Dkpautment, Buukau of Refugees,) 

FKEEDJIKN, AMD AliANDONEU LANDS, > 

WASHINGTOK, D.C, May 19, 181)5. J 



By the appointment of tlie President, I assume charge of the " Bureau of Refugees, 
Frt'cdnien, and Abandoned Lauds." 

I. Commissioners will be at once appointed for the different insurrectionary .States To 
tliem will be intrusted the supervision of abandoned lands, and the control of all subjects 
relating to refugees and freedmen in their respective districts. All agents in the lield, how- 
ever appointed, are requested to report to them the condition of their work. Refugees 
and freedmen not alrcaily provided for will inform them of their wants. All applications 
for relief will be referred to them or their agents by post and district commanders. 

IV. But it is not the intention of tiovernment tliat this bureau shall supersede the vari- 
ous benevolent organizations in the work of administering relief. This must still be af- 
forded by the benevolence cf the people through their voluntary societies, no government- 
al appropriations having been maile for this purpose. The various Commissioners will 
look to tne associations laboring in their respective districts to provide as Jieretof'ore for 
the wants of these destitute people'. I invite, therefore, the contiimance and co-operatiou 
of such societies. I trust they will still be generously supported by the people, and 1 re- 
quest them to send me their names, lists of their principal officers, and a brief statement of 
their present work. 

HI. The demands for labor are sufficient to aff'ord employment to nearly, if not quite, 
all the able-bodied refugees and freedmen. It will be tlie object of all Commissioners to 
introduce practicable systems of compensated labor; and to this end, they will endeavor to 
remove the prejudices of their late masters unwilling to employ their former servants; to 
correct the false impressions sometimes entertained by the fi'eednieu that tliey can live 
without labor; and to overcome that false pride which renders some of the refugees more 
\villing to be supported in idleness than to support themselves. While a generous provi- 
sion should be made for the aged, inlirm, and sick, the able-bodied should be encouraged, 
aud, if necessary, compelled, to labor lor their own support. 

IV. The educational and moral condition of these people will not be forgotten. The ut- 
most facility will be afforded to benevolent and religious organizations and State authori- 
ties in the maintenance of good schools (for refugees and freedmen) until a system of free 
schools can be supported by the reorganized local governments. Meanwhile, whenever 
schools are broken up by authorized agents of the Government, it is requested that the 
fact and attendant circumstances be reported to this Bure.iu. 

Let me repeat, that in all this work it is not my purpose t« supersede the benevolent 
agencies already engaged in it, but to systematise and facilitate them. 

O. O. HOW'AKD, 

Major-Gen. Commissioner Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. 
[Official.] 

War Department, Buukau of Refuoees, ) 

fiteed.mkn, and abandoned lands, > 

Washington, D.C., Dec. 7, 1805. J 

My Dear Sir, — Your letter enclosing the Circulars came duly; but in the press of 
business in getting my Report ready for Congress, I have had to forego for a lew days the 
privilege of attending to private or semi-official correspondence. 

I do not think I could give any suggestions. Your printed circulars seem to embrace the 
objects of the Freedmen's Aid Soeleties : but I am exceedingly fi;lad to see the Episcopal 
Church come out so earnestly in favor of this work. God speed you, say V. 1 send you 
with this copies of circulars issued from this office; and 1 sh.tll always be happy to do any 
thing in my power, consistent with my orders, to aid you. 

Very truly yours, 

O. O. UowAKD, Major-Gen. 
Bev. Dr. F. Wuarton, Brookline, Mass. 

22 



Appendix Q. 

SOUTHERN MEN AS CO-WORKERS. 

North Carolina Council and the Fkeedmen. 

On the 15th of Sept., the third day of the session, 

" The Committee to wliom was referred that part of the Bishop's address relating to the 
present condition and religious culture of tlie colored population, submitted, through its 
chairman, Kev. George M. iCverheart, the foUowin'' report: — 

" WiiKkiOAS, by the chan^jed relation existing between the white and black races, a 
new, and, to some extent, confused condition of things obtains; and as this revolution iH 
society necessarily tends to create an alienation amounting at least to indifference on the 
part of the former owners of slaves, and distrust and suspicion on the part of the freed- 
men towards tlicir former masters, and as the religious education of the freedmen lias been 
thereby already greatly hindered, and in some cases defeated; and as the present civil 
status of the Iroedmen, notwithstanding these things, for many reasons seems clearly 
providential, and should be accepted by us as such, — therefore, 

Hesutved, That the Church in this Diocese aiKlrcss herst'lf, with all the energy and wis- 
dom at her command, to reduce this confusion to order, and to elevate the colored race as 
fast as it may come within her sphere of action, lu order to accomplish this end, be it 
further 

Resolved, 1st, That this Council commend the people of color to the continued and un- 
abated forbearance, kindness, and good-will of the white population of this Diocese. 

Resolved, 2d, That in view of the radical changes wrought in the colored man's politi- 
cal, and, to a largo degree, social condition, it is .idvisable that there should be radical 
changes also brought about in his religious and ecclesiastical relations; that his former 
and subordinate place in the Sunday school, in the congregation, and at the communion 
will not answer; that to reach him with tlie teachings and blessings of the Church it is 
the sense of this Council that separate houses of worship should be provided as soon as 
practicable (the white people in tliis aiding the colored); that colored vestries should be 
appointed, with white wardens to dh-ect ;iJid afford counsel ; that there should be separate 
Sunday schools and separate congregations; that colored superintendents and catechists 
should be secured and appointed when practicable, or at least should be chosen as assist- 
ants to liead catechists or superintendents; tliat all colored congregations, when competent 
to form a parish, should have power, througli their vestries, of electing their own pastors, 
and that the pastors may be either white or colored clergymen, and, when colored, with re- 
lations to this Council to be determined hereafter. 

Resolved, ;!d, That tlie attention of the clergy of this Diocese be directed to the import- 
ance of at once seeking out suitable colored men for catechists and Sunday-school teach- 
ers, and to give them, as far as possible, personal instructions to lit them for these posts. 

Resolved, 4th, That this Council extend an invitation to colored clergymen of the Church 
to come among their own people in this Diocese, and labor in their sphere with us, in 
building up the kingdom of Christ. 

Resolved, 5th, That this Council recommend steps to be taken, as soon as practicable, 
for the education of colored young men for the ministry of the Church to their own peo- 
ple in our midst. 

Resolved, (ith. That, whenever it is practicable, each parish should make provision for 
the mental training of the colored children, in such a manner and to such a degre* as the 
condition of affairs may justify, and by every other legitimate means to impress upon the 
freednian's mind the sincere interest felt in, and cherished for, him by the Church. 

The total change in our political and domestic relations, as regards the colored man, and 
the rapid and almost universal deterioration in his moral condition since his emancipation 
from slavery, demand, as it appears to your Committee, bold, decisive, and delinite action 
in his behalf. In elevating his character, we shall make him more faitliful and competent 
in his sphere, and discharge thereby more perfectly our religious obligations to his race. 
Moreover, your Committee is of the opinion that the path pointed out is the most direct ' 
way of carrying to tlie colored man the blessings of our holy Christianity, through the in- 
strumentalities of the Church; and, as we believe the Church to be Apostolic and Catho- 
lic, we leel bound to do all within our power to cor.vey its holy teachings as rapidly and as 
potently as possible to every soul committed to our care, whether its casket be Anglican 
or African. 

Deeply impressed with the great importance of this matter, we respectfully submit the 
above report for your consideration. 

G. M. EVEKHART, Chairman. 
Alhert Sjiedes. 
U. r. UuxToN. 

23 



24 



APPENDIX. 



The introduction of this report elicited an interesting discussion, at the close of which it 

•' Resolced, That, in consideration of the interest and importance of the subject presented 
iu tliis rfi»ort, Council postpone action upon it until its next meetlnj;, oommending in tlie 
meuntiiuf llie temporal aiul religious interests of our colored population to the benevo- 
lence aud wisdom of the Diocese." 
Of the sub<tviuent proceedings, the editor of the " Intelligencer " thus speaks: — 
"The report elicited considerable debate; not opposition, however. The question dis- 
cussed w:is simplv iu regard to present action. A large majority of the Council would 
have voted for its'iminediate adoption, had not the Bishop, who took oceasiou to indorse 
the repurt iu very decided terms, expressed the opinion that a postponement till next 
Council would be the safest course." 
And subsequently : — , ^ /,- j i 

" It seems to us no one can carefully examine the details of the report and be offended. 
But, be that as it mav, it embodies our sentiments, and we shall teacU them not only in our 
sphere as a parish priest, but as a church editor. Their worth is more apparent every 

" \Vhy should any one be olfendcd because some plan is devising for the negro's elevation? 
To elevate him is to bless our.-elves, protect society, develop our resources, and save our 
Southern heritage from becoming a desolation. 

■' It is singularly true that those who sliirked service, never gave blood nor treasure to the 
cause of the South, are now tVequentlv tlie most rampant resistaiits wir.h their tongues 
to tlie authoritv of tlie United States, the same holds good to no small degree in re^'ard 
to the ne^^ro. 'fhose who never owned a slave, or whose possession of the negro has been 
a recent tiling, are generally least disposed to do auglit for his elevation now. .So far as 
we are coucerned, we have 'been a slaveowner all our life, as all our fathers were. We feel 
a special privilege therefore in writing all we can, in doing ail we can, and in saying all we 
can, to educate the negro's mind and heart. We are well assured on tliis depends hia all, 
and to no small degree the future well-being of the Southern white man for a generatioa 
to come I " 

War Department, Bureau ok Refugees, 
flteed.mi-.n, and auando.vki) lands, 
Washington, Oct. 9, 1805. 

MY DEAR Sir, — I have just received your kind letter, and hasten to reply. By judicious 
effort, very much may be done in the way of education in the Soutli. flie want ot money, 
the peculiar habits of a lifetime, aud the prejudices necessarily existing, render the South- 
ern communities for the most part unprepared to educate their poor, butii winte and black. 

Kducation underlies every hope of success for the Ireedman. Tliis education must, of 
course, extend rather to the practicable arts than to tlieorelii-al knowledLje. Every Ihuig 
depends on the vouth and the cliildren being thoroughly instructed in every inUustrial pur- 
suit. Through education, embracing moral and religious training, the fearlul prejudice and 
hostility against the blacks can be overcome. Tliey tnemselves will be able to demand and 
receive boUi privileges and riglits tliat we now have dilhculty to guaranie;\ Tlurelore, I 
earnestly entreat benevolent associations to leave no stone unturned to give them the op- 
portunities for gaining knowledge. 

I would enjoy bein- with you at your meeting in Vhiladelphia, but my orders carry me 
iu the other direction. Do every thing you possibly can for the elevation ol the freedmen. 
My impression is tliat hundreds, ami perhaps tliousands, of Soutliern people would be 
ready to aid vou if tliey were approaiihed in tlie right way. They acknowledge their ne- 
cessities; and, as in Louisiana, a large number of native teachers will work lor wages. I 
am often asked what I cau do in the way of aid. My answer is, '• Not mac;li " I must turn 
to the societies now, and ask them wliat they can do to aid me K Wiiat are tlie people 
willing to do to secure the blessings almost within our grasp, — the blessings ot substantial 
Ireedom and enduring peace? Whetlicr iu a moral or political point of view, I believe 
every thinking man is ready to admit that we will stand or fall as a nation ac.ording as we 
are true to principle, —according to our fidelity to tlie trusts evidently eoinimtted to us. 

. Very truly vours, 

O. O. liow.vui), Miijor- General. 



The ministers of all denominations at Selma, Ala., have issued an appeal to the freedmen, 
of which the following is the main portion : — 

I. We notice that some of the papers circulated among you are trying to make you be- 
lieve that you are bated and detested by the wliitt; peojile here. The writers oi these pa- 

to 
tell 

„„ .^ ^...^ __^_ ^ _._ . . ry 

wliite miin'asyoureneinv; to feel bitter mid suspicious; and then to conduct yourself in 
such a way as to give liiiii the same feeling towards you. This makes you leel still worse; 
and so it goes on. Now it is certain that we have got to live togetln-r; and tlie better the 
feeling between us, the happier to both iwrties, — lorour interests in this world, becnu.se in 
carrying on all kinds of business, we have to depend on oiu; another; for our spiritual in- 
terests, because tlie Spirit of God cannot dwell in angry and malicious hearts. He who 
would throw in any thing to prevent our coming togelUer iu as much peace and harmony 
j» we ever had, is aueoemy u'f Uod aud man. 




APPENDIX. .25 

Where do you find signs that we hate you ? It is true that there waa gome b.-xd foelinR 
at first. Some colored people thought they couldn't show thfir (rceilom without boiiig iin- 
pudeiit and ill-maiint'ied; somo white folks, vexed at the way things turned out, were 
cross-grained towards the frcedmen. But this was only for ii little while, and with a few 
people. As a general thing, the whites were disposed to be kind and triendly, and to give 
you a good start as far as they were able. If a freedman's mind liad been poisoned aj^ainst 
his former owner, so that ho would take no advice, but did every thing to vex and discour- 
age his friends, wliose fault was that? A woman lately did something very foolish, which 
may make her unhappy for life. Her former mistress was asked how she came to let Nancy 
t;ike sncli a step. " I did all I could," was the reply; " but she would listen to any low- 
down wliite man sooner than to me; and now she must go her own way. I'm sorry for 
her; but slie has made her own bed." 

If planti'rs olfer their freedmeu a fair share of the crop, and more; and then see that 
they are not doing half work, not making enoui^^h to support themselves, is it a wonder 
tliey get ani^'ry 'i But if they turn olf this set, and try to get more faithful hands, is it be- 
cause they hate them ? iS'o; they are sorry for them ; and it grieves them to the heart to 
see them going to ruin. It was because they feared this very thing tliat they were opposed 
to abolition. 

They knew that if they could hire gnod, faithful hands, they could really make more off 
their farms than by keeping slaves. Now that abolition has come, they want to make the 
thing work as well as it can for both parties. They have tlieir own interests in view as 
well as yours. Your interests are the same with theirs. If they do well, you do; and if 
tliey sutler, you do. The freedman who does not do his own part honestly and faithfully 
hates himself. But we declare to you, as in the jiresence of God, that your best friends in 
the world before abolition were your masters, and the same persons are your best friends 
now, — they are indeed the only real friends you have; but you cannot reasonably e.\pcct 
them to do every thing for you. You can't ex|)ect them to be your friends whds you are 
your own enemies. Respect yourself so as to be above every thing mean and contemptible; 
respect yourself so as to be above associating with low-lived people, whether black or 
white; respect other persons, and don't be putting on foolish airs; and you may be very 
sure that everv body will respect you. 

II. As your friends, we caution you against idleness, and the vices and follies that grow 
out of it. "An idle brain is the devil's workshop;" there he manufactures all kinds of 
wicked thoughts ; and wicked thoughts are never long without opportunity for wicked deeds. 
" Satan tinds mischief still for idle hands to do." 

Yon are now passing through a great triiil, a trial of your characters, which will prove 
whether you are good metal worth preserving, or whether you arc mere dirt to be trampled 
under foot. Many of you are as much mistaken about freedom, as th? old .lews were 
about the kinL;(loni of Christ. Th(!y thought that in the kingdom they were to do nothing 
but to sit on thrones and eat milk and honey; and because they could not have ityin that 
way, they would not luive it all. Now, Christ makes us free •' to work out our own salva- 
tion." We "are to be careful to maintain good works." " If any man will not work, 
neither should he cat." " Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, work- 
ing with his hands the thing that is good.'' No sensible Cliristian expects to be wafted to 
to the skies on flowery beds of ease ; and no man of any sense expects to be prosperous, 
respectable, and happy, if he does not find employment, and work at it manfully and faith- 
fully. Uon't expect God to feed you by any miracle. Don't expect the devil to feed you un- 
less you do his dirty work. No doubt he will feed you while you work for him; and ho 
will pay you your wages, — Death. 

The old .lews were God's chosen people. He fed them with manna while they were in 
such a condition that they could not feed themselves. If any man can show that, without 
any fault of his own, he cannot make an honest living, he may expect God to feed liim. 
We want you to remember another thing about those old .Jews: out of all that crossed the 
Kcd Sea, only two got to the promised land. The reason was that " they sat down to eat 
and drink, and rose up to play : " that was uU they cared for, and " they perished in the 
wilderness." 

When we see young women idling about; flaunting in the streets in shabby finery, wh.at 
must wc think of how they make a living ? Can we respect them ? Can we" hire them to 
wait in our houses, or to'nurse our children? When wo hire a woman to work in the 
house, and she don't half do her work,,atid is sometimes impertinent to our wives, cm we 
keep her? Can we give her a recommendation? We could not do that for anybody. 
What must become of her? People are sorry to sec her in a way to sutler in this' world 
and to be damned forever. But she is a free woman ; she must go to ruin in her own way. 
But she shall not have to tell against us in the great judgment day that we lifted no finger 
to stop her in her mad career. 

We ride through the country: we see plantations where every thing used to be comfort- 
able and abundant; tields waving with plenty, cabins kept clean and healthy, children 
fhining with fat, men and women contented and good humored, so that we loved to stop 
and have a few words with them; and one of the greatest pleasures in life was to pre.ach 
at the quarters. But now how changed 1 We may say with Solomon, •' I went by the field 
of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all 
grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone-wall 
thereof was broken downl Then I saw and considered it well. I looked upon it and re- 
ceived instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep; 
so shall thy poverty come as one that travaileth, and thy want as an armed man " 

Why this change ? Is it bee luse the owners do not give the freedmen a fair chance ? We 
declare before God that they have a better chance to do for themselves than any farming 

Ceople ever had since the world begun. Yet it is very plain that they are not making one 
ushel of corn where they might make feu. They are not making enough to carry them 
through the year. Where's tlie rest to come from ? Will the owners of the laud provide 
Lt t Where's the money to come from ? 



26 APPENDIX. 

Solomon says again, "That the desire of the slothful slayeth him." A lazy man desires 
to eat as much as anybody else. To eat, he must beg or steal. Mucli <jood it will do him to 
beg; and, when it comes to stealing, the penalty is ten years hard labor in the penitentiary. 

We suppose the sort of men that do these things miiy never hear of this address, and 
may not heed it if they do. But we call upon the respectable freedmen to use their influ- 
ence to put a stop to such doings. Let them remember that the bad conduct of these slug- 
gards casts a stain upon all the colored people, just as the bad conduct of a member of the 
Church disgraces the whole body of the Church. 

Do these sluggards think tliey will be kept another year on plantations, and in other 
places, where they are so unfaitliful this year? If you hire a man by the month, and he 
lazes along the three weeks, and then breaks off just in the pinch of the business, are you 
going to hire him again? Do they think that the plantations are going to be turned 
over to them to do as they please .' We tell you as a friend, and if you are their friends 
you'll tell them, that the sooner they get this foolish idea out of their heads the better for 
tliem. 

Wc speak to the respectable freedmen,— men whom we respected as honorable, upright, 
and faithful servants. They have our opinion still; and we say tliat they are bound to use 
tlie inlluence of their good cliaracter to lead their fellows in the right way. If you do not, 
tlieir blood is on your skirts. 

III. We caution you not to forget " the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wis- 
dom." Without this, no man lias any principle that can be depended upon. 

"Set the Lord always before you," — your Creator, your Saviour, your trternalJudge. 
Think of him as re^rarding every action, as grieved by every sin, as determined to bring 
every work into jud;rinent. " Set him always before you, and you shall never fail." No 
matter what temptation to do wrong, no matter how you may see other men appearing to 
flourish in their wickedness, you will say, " IIow can I do this great thing, and sin against 
the Lord ? " 

Wicked men may prosper, and inorease in riches through their wickedness; for it is not 
in this life that God recompenses the ungodly. But " what shall it prolita man if he shall 
gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? " This world is not all; 

" Beyond this vale of tears, 

There is a life above, ' 

Unmeasured by the flight of years i 
And all that life is love. 

There is a death whose pang 

Outlast* the fleeting breath i 
Oh. what eternal horrors hang 

Around the second death 1 

Lord God of truth and grace, 

Teach us that death to. shun I 
Lest wc be driven from tliy face 

For evermore undone ! " 

We have spoken the truth in love. Will you receive it in the same spirit ? 
Your friends, as you conduct yourselves; your enemies, never I Always your servants, 
for Christ's sake. 

J. H. TiCKNOR. 

E. Baldwin, t 
A. T. Spalding. 
L. C. Ransom. 

F. M. GllACE. 

N. B. Cooper. 



Appendix H. 

PRESENT DESTITUTION. 

Headquarters Assistant Commissioner, Bureau Keftiijces, Freedmen, and Abandoned) 
Lauds, South CoruUnu uud ueurgiu. diurlenton, S.C, Oct, U', 18tx>. i 

Chairjian Commission on Clothing, Boston, Mass. 

My Dear Sir, — I deem it my duty to call your attention to the fact that great num- 
bers of destitute persons, for whose protection this bureau was establiMlicd, call again for 
the benevolence of the i^orth. Unless clothing of all kinds is furnished, tliere must be 
great sutlering and loss of life during the inclement season now approachiuff. The mt.-ans 
at the disposal of the Freedmen's liiireau are entirely inadequate to meet the pressing; de- 
mands of destitute humanity. Blankets, woolen shirts, pantaloons, women's and child- 
ren's underclothing and dresses, and shoes and stockings, of all sizes, are needed. 

Great portions of these two States have been desolated and laid waste by the late war. 
Industry has been interrupted, and over large districts entirely suspended; and thousands 
of people are utterly destitute. Thirty-live thousand blankets arc needed in South Carolina 
and on tlie Sea Islands alone. Every necessary article of wearing apparel which you cau 
send will be tlie mea-ns of saving some one from suUering. Great care will bcused in the 
distribution of the clothing and supplies sent, as an officer will be specially uppoiuicd to 
acknowledge the receipt of articles, and attend to their distribution. 

I am, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant, 

R. Saxton, Brev. Major- General, 

Assistant Commissioner. 

NOTES OF A VISIT MADE TO SEE GOVERNOR PARSONS OF ALABAMA. 

ACO. 16, 1885. 

Met Governor Parsons just leaving the capitol. Making known to him my business and 
relation, he greets me warmly, and appoints si.x o'clock as the hour of meeting me. The 
governor gives hearty e.xpression to his deep interest in tlie condition of the freedmen. 
Says to me, " You will see the deep interest I must have felt in your presence this after- 
noon, when I tell you that these matters are almost constantly pressing upon me. So con- 
cerned have I become in these matters, that I yesterday sent a commissioner to the Presi- 
dent, and to-day commissioned still another to go to Washington to seek counsel and aid. 

" Formerly," said Governor Parsons, " every planter's ' quarters ' was his ' alms-house.' 
There were in 18(i0, two thousand si.x hundred and ninety tree colored people in the State, 
and four hundred and thirty-tive thousand and eighty slaves. Large masses of these people 
have never known what it is to provide for themselves. They are improvident. They can, 
in this warm season, live otf the fruits and vegetables of the held, and sleep in the open 
air; but what will they do when the cold frosts and snows are upon us (for we are having 
snows of late years) .' Sir, the time is rapidly approaching when we nuist have aid at hand 
or they will die. Before the war, we had usually about six millions of acres under cultivn- 
tiou; now, I judge, there are not more thantwo millions, and this is greatly parched and 
dried up. The matter is becoming alarmingly pressing." 

The governor recognized the importance of instructing and educating the colored people, 
but considers their physical wants are now the most pressing. — National Fueedman. 



GOVERNOR PARSONS OF ALABAMA, AT COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, NOV. 13, 1865. 

" The Government of the United States has emancipated the black people, and provided 
by act of Congress, approved the 3d of March, for the existence and oiganization of the 
Freedmen's Bureau. That bureau, in the State of Alabama, is in charge of Miijor-Gen. 
Swayne, who reached there to take charge of his department at the same time that I 
reached there, charged, under the commission of the I'resident, with establishing a civil 
provisional government for the State. In a short time it became apparent to the intelligent 
and thinking portion of the people, and, as fast as they became acquainted with Gen. 
Swayne, that impression became more and more general, that tliat bureau, under his skil- 
ful administration, being a m.in of large and comprehensive views, and of strong sense of 
justice, could be the means, and would be the means, if tlie Government diil not discontinue 
it, of aiding those who saw the necessity for aid, until we could realize, from the fruits of 
another year's industry, the means of subsistence for these people. As you understand, 
that bureau is organized by the Federal Government; it has its conlidence; it has all the 
machinery in operation, ready now to disseminate or distribute material and other aid 

27 



28 



APPENDIX. 



throughout the State; nnd it can enlarge its capacity of doing so at pleasure, and accord- 
inar to tlie necessity tliat exists for it. l' lias not, however, tlio means to meet tliese ovcr- 
wliolming ttemands upon its resources. While the Government assures the bureau that it 
is v.illin;^ to do all in its power (o sustain it and render it elDcient, there is reason to appre- 
hend tli.it much will remain undone tor want of necessary means to do it. Vou see at once, 
from what I have alr;'ady stated, tliat the means of alTording relief, not only to the white 
people, but to tlie black people, are wanting materially. 80 iar as the blacks are concerned, 
an entire svstem of relief is to be inaugurated from very the foundation ; and the question is, 
Shall that be temiiorary in its character, or shall it be of such a description as will insure 
permanency, and in the future great results to the white. I'erhaps it is not necessary to call 
your attention at this time to it, but I cannot forbear hinting, at least, at the fact that, by 
means of this great organization, which has now the suiiport of the powerful arm of the 
Government to sustain it, there is an opportunity alforded for inaugurating a sound and 
clUcient system, simple, direct and to the purpose, wliieh will be as lasting perhaps as the 
demands of the race for whom it was inaugurated. [Loud apiilause.] If this oi)i)orluiiity is 
permitted to pass unimjjroved, it will never present itself again. It is immaterial what 
may be the color ; when it is furnished to them by a heart mo\ ed to sympathy on account 
of their necessities, tliev, 1 say, are well prejjared to receive counsel in connection with it. 
How much can now be' dune wliicli will in turn become an instrument to produce other 
effects, multiplied for others in future years. Aid to this Freedinen's Bureau, therefore, is 
the great object. I take it, which should be striven for on the part of every one who desires 
to render efficient aid. It matters not whether he is an individual, or whether he is an in- 
dividual of a body having for the objects of its organization these great objects in view. I 
will say also, in this coiiliection, that it is manifest to every one that ouly in this way can 
the people of that section of the South where the war has been raging most furiously, and 
where its destructive effects have been made most aijpareut; it is in this way only that it 
can raise a crop another year. Before tliey can realize the fruits of another year's in- 
dustry, this class must starve, unless assistance is promptly furnished them." 

EXTKACT FKOM A LKTTER FROM A CLERGYMAN OF SOUTH CAROLINA TO A FRIEND IN 

NEW YORK, UNDER DATE OF NOV. 8. 

"My great trouble now isthe want of employment, either clerical or .secular. Will you 

be kind enough, my dear Dr. , to use yoiir influence in securing nie an appointment 

under the Board of .Missions for the poor freedmen of the South ? Jly ministry since leav- 
ing the seminary, has been e.vclusively to tin? colored race on the coast of South Carolina, 
and I am glad to be able to s.ay that my mission was regarded by the bishop as one of the 
mo>r nourishing in the diocese. Jly cliurch building lias, I believe, escaped destruction; 
but it will net-d some repairs, as it has been left vacant since IMJO. The congregation was 
dispersed by the near apjiroach of the Federal army; but since the emancipation of our 
slaves, thousands of freedmen have congregated on the Sea Islands, where the rivers afford 
them cheap and easy living; and now there are thousands of tlK? sons and daughters of Af- 
rica around my church, my vacant church, readv to hear the word of God; but, alas! the 
pastor who^e voice once sounded forth the ghul tidings of salvation to the poor negro is 
far away ; and tlie only sound now heard arouiul that onco favored spot is the sighing of 
wind tllroiigli the lofty jiiiies. Jlv longing desire is to return and reorganize my church 
for the poor blacks, who are not'able at present to pay one cent for the gospel; neither 
are their former owners. *•■'' ' ■"" '■' "" -"•■•"'"-" ■">'' ""^ '>'">" *-> >■...„,.,. t,> >«^ 



WHO are last ueclming into inegrossesi iramoraiuy, iiiey eiiuiioi, aeL lou suuu m mi^ in.uici . 
There ar(! at this time at least one hundred thousand of them witlunit a single authorized 
teacher among them. Some of mv former congregation have expressed the hope that I 
will return and re-establish the church for them; but here I am, unable to i)ay my way 
home, or even purchase food and clothing for myself were I able to reach home. I am now 
staying with a friend whose house I assisted to save during the great conflagration. I men- 
tion these things to show you the true state o4' the case in reference to the missionaries to 
colored congregutiono." 



TEACHERS. 

Applications of teachers arc hereafter to be made to Rev. 
J. Brinton Smitu, D.D., General Agent, No. 10 Bible Rooms, 
New York. 



REMITTANCES. 

All remittances of funds to be made to Robert B. l^IiN- 
TURN, Esq. (Grinnell, Minturu, & Co.), New York. 



SUPPLIES FOR THE FREEDMEN. 

As frequent communications are received by the Secretary, 
inquiring what kind of supplies are needed for the Freedmcn, 
it has been thought best to answer such inquiries briefly by 
circular. 

1. Cast ofF clothing, for old and young of both sexes, in- 
cluding hats, caps, shoes, socks, and, in fine, outer and under 
garments of every description^ also, bedquilts, blankets, 
sheets, <&c. 

2. New clothing and bedding. The material should be 
plain but substantial. Garments for women and children es- 
pecially may be made of gray and blue flannels (such as have 
been used for soldiers' shirts), denims, and heavy unbleached 
cotton. 

3. Material for clothing and bedding, and all things required 
in the manufacture of the same, such as needles, thread, but- 
tons, hooks and eyes, knitting needles, yarn, scissors, &c. 

4. Slates and pencils, school books, old Sunday school 
books, and books for general reading. 

The barrel or box (the Ibrmer is preferable), used for pack- 
ing, should be numbered and forwarded to the Rev. J. Bhin- 
TON Smith, D.D., Bible House, New York. A list of articles 
sent, as well as the number of the barrel or box containing 
them, should be enclosed in a letter, to the same address. 

It is earnestly recommended to clergymen to send an ex- 
press WAGON THROUGH THEIR PARISHES TO COLLECT CAST-OFF 
CLOTHING, TO BE DISTRIBUTED THROUGH THIS AGENCY. 

29 



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